This week there are a bunch of games coming out, keep an eye on Playfeed for all the latest gaming news. The major release being Midway’s Area 51 for Xbox and PS2. Area 51 has been hyped up and now it’s time for everyone to find out if the hype matches the game. If you’re not into that type of alien game and want something a little more toned down, you can go for Lego Star Wars. This game goes through Episodes I and II and gives you a quick glimpse at Episode III.

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Okay, this one might be a bit late, but it;e good to see nonetheless for those frightened of upgrading their PC’s. The Windows XP Setup Simulator basically walks you through the setup process you would go through if you were actually installing the OS, but without making any changes to your PC. It allows you to get acquainted with the steps involved before taking the dive. We should just be hearing about this a bit sooner than a year and a half before Longhorn drops. Nonetheless, you can download it here.

Samba is currently working on perfecting an EV-DO USB modem which would allow those who don’t want to purchase a PMCIA card to access an EV-DO networks to still get online using their laptop. Of course, if you have a 12-inch PowerBook like I do, then you don’t even have a slot to put the standard EV-DO card into. This CDMA/EV-DO device supports 800 Mhz and 1900 Mhz bands and data rates up to 2.4 mbps. I cannot tell you how much I would like to see this hit the market.

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Don’t get too exicted, there is nothing concrete about this. That being said, how awesome would this be? The digital camera add-on is a nice touch as well. A 6 GB iPod mini/digital camera hybrid would certainly sell nicely.

The students at Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television has the unique opportunity to earn either $5,000 or a 4-week internship at EA’s Maxis Studios. The students are to use the video creation tools which are a part of The Sims 2 to come up with the best 3 minute (or so) family-friendly film starring The Sims. You can check out the complete guidelines here.

This is the kind of place I would image just about every Gear Live reader would love to spend an extended vacation. It’s the Emerates Palace, where some staff get around on Segway units, and their private beach is Internet ready - and check out the amenity list:

The most advanced hotel multimedia system, including touch screen control panel, will allow guests full control of all room appliances such as lights, air-conditioning and in-room entertainment

This week in Playlist we have a new release from one of America’s greatest musical treasures, Bruce Springsteen. Along with the Boss, we have a disc from Martha Wainwright, a member of the reigning singer/songwriter royal family.

With just under a month to go until E3, expect the gaming news to start flowing fast and hard. Last year Square Enix put on a great show, had an incredible booth, and really just did an all out great job. It looks like they are aiming to pull out all the stops yet again. This year they will be showing Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (again), Front Mission Online, Romancing SaGa, Radiata Stories, Kingdom Hearts II, and Fullmetal Alchemist 2: Curse of the Crimson Elixir, Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, and Final Fantasy XII. We’re excited to see how this turns out and so is Ichiro Otobe, President of Square Enix:

“This year’s line-up will showcase huge titles from all of our major franchises, making this a particularly unique E3 for us. In addition to titles from our familiar franchises such as Dragon Quest VIII and Kingdom Hearts II, we will have playable demos of many other exciting, new games that will soon be as recognizable on consoles, mobile phones, online and DVD. Compilation of Final Fantasy VII will be a great example of the actual delivery of polymorphic content, our new content deployment model based on the creation of original concepts with interactivity on multiple platforms in mind from the start.”

We figured the new PowerMac’s would be dropping this week, and Amazon all but confirmed it when they put up a listing for the new machine before Apple was able to officially make the announcement. The new PowerMac will house dual 2.7 GHz processors, 512MB of DDR SDRAM, a 250 GB hard drive, 16x Dual-Layer SuperDrive, and the Tiger OS - all for just $3,000.

The original creators of Netscape have taken another step in the world of the interweb. Mike Homer and Mark Andreessen have launched the Open Media Network which allows public broadcasters, video bloggers, podcasters, and others to make their work public. This new service takes the publishers files, places them into their P2P, and organizes them into an organized guide kind of like an on screen channel guide for TV. From there you can subscribe to the publishers content you like or just simply view things on a click by click basis.

“We’re trying to create a free consumer service that would allow the viewing of public service content on the Internet. Right now there is no easy way for consumers to (publish and view) these things. It has not been a consumer phenomenon, it’s been an early adopter phenomenon,” says Mike Homer.